The 360 is a marvellous piece of kit, but with a lot of flaws that can really ruin your gaming experience if you don’t watch out for them. I speak from experience…


Protip numero uno: NEVER delete a gamer profile unless you are 100% sure there is nothing on the system you want kept. Unfortunately, for some bizarre reason, Microsoft decided it would be great to make it so deleting a profile would remove any game saves under that account. Well why on Earth would you delete your profile? I hear you say. Let’s say you have your profile on a memory device but decide to recover it on your hard drive. May as well remove the account from the memory card then…. I learnt this the hard way by losing hundreds of hours of game saves due to a horrendous design flaw on Microsoft’s part.

Protip numero dos: If you’re going to download any “Premium content” (Arcade games, expansions for games, etc.) do it on the Xbox you plan on using them on. Another bastardised piece of design by Microsoft. I can understand why they do it, but it’s another case of destroying the experience for the majority because of the pirates. The idea is that you can only use this “premium content” on the Xbox you downloaded it on, UNLESS you sign in on XBL, where it will pick up you have the content. So don’t go thinking you can take your Hard Drive to your friend’s house, who doesn’t have Live and play on your arcade games. It sucks.

Protip numero trés: Register your system! Should you need to call up the hotline if your 360 breaks, this will speed the whole situation up hugely. On another note regarding customer service, don’t be afraid to show you’re not going to settle for crap. I’ve had 4 360’s replaced, and most of the time you hear the same old support staff reading the same checklists again and again. Don’t be afraid to ask for someone higher up.

Protip numero cuatro: The 360’s codec support is somewhat horrific. This will soon be massively upgraded on Tuesday with the Xvid support but there will still be stuff that doesn’t work. For the stuff that doesn’t, check out TVersity, a free program that will act as a media server and transcode your videos to a codec the 360 can decode. If you’re on a home network, this is easy as anything. It also supports music, pictures and streaming media.

Protip number cinco: Keep your 360 horizontal if possible! It should work fine vertically, but the amount of problems people have had would indicate otherwise (Scratched game lens, damaged discs…). So if you want to keep your 360 alive for as long as possible keep the damn thing horizontal.

Stay tuned for when I think of some more. Most importantly, don’t be afraid by all the problems there are. Under normal usage and, usually a bit of common sense, you’ll experience little trouble with your 360.